Enigmas
by Sylverlin
Summary: The Republic Military Intelligence has run across a strange coincidence that may or may not have the potential to upset the balance of the Republic. Is there a sliver of veracity in the tangle of dead ends? An answer?  OCs, may or may not become AU
1. Chapter 1: Slicers and Hackers

**A/N: I spent some time thinking about the weak spots in Palpatine's whole scheme, and I think I found a few, some more obvious - or, more appropriately, less inconspicuous - than others. We shall see whether they will matter (read: this may or may not become AU), I am exploring the possibilities on the go.**

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MIDDEC headquarters are one of those places that make war and, say, health insurance look alike.

There's several rooms, each of those contains several terminals, each terminal is controlled by one person. Several more people are flocking to and fro. Perhaps a certain giveaway of the military character of the place are the simple uniforms, or maybe the cold urgency and focus with which everything is carried out. But other than that, a random visitor would not think that he was looking at one of the many low-profile but key installations in the war.

Of course, there were no random visitors.

The people at MIDDEC, or Military Intelligence Department of Decryption, are of a special kind. They like puzzles, and they are generally not very exuberant, albeit exceptions are to be found. They do not mind spending their days, and, admittedly, nights, glued to their screens. In fact, they rather enjoy it – to pit their minds against those of the enemy, the challenge – and they are not immediately aware of the immense ramifications their work has. The enemy encryption is just another puzzle.

MIDDEC has a sister department, MIDENC, which is staffed by a very similar breed of people in a very similar environment, only the task is switched around: these people are responsible for ensuring no one can hear what the Republic's forces are talking about. It is only natural, then, that people change places between the two departments rather often. In fact, it is a policy of the Republic Military Intelligence to transfer people between the workplaces after they complete their assigned tasks. It is good practice.

Dor Palana, a Duro, was assigned to a group which was tackling a particularly troubling package of intercepted messages, supposedly communication among elements of Separatist leadership. His previous job at MIDENC was verifying safety levels for senate-military channels; such work was considered boring by the community, so he was rather excited to lay his hands on a real challenge. He ran the usual gauntlet of standard decryption routines, to get a feel for the puzzle at hand, and was wickedly satisfied to see that there was no pattern: that should really be an interesting one to crack.

It was two days into Dor's new assignment when his human Corellian colleague, Ana Shtilek, plopped beside him for lunch with a datapad and started right away.

"I think I may be on to something. I ran several evolutionary reconstructions and allowed parameters on the complex plane – and this is what I got."

She showed Dor her datapad and grabbed a bagel.

"See how the distribution looks sort of like a Sierpinsky carpet? I think that's what has been giving us the trouble, we were doing parameters on only one dimension, so we couldn't notice," she pointed to the pattern on the screen and bit a good chunk of the pastry.

Dor immediately forgot about lunch.

"Am I a Nerf herder. Yeah. Take the generating function of the Sierpinsky pattern, stretch the raw data over the complex plane and use that function as a factor. The rest is an obvious projection back on the real plane."

He handed her the datapad back. Ana was, however, quite taken aback at Dor's apparent certainty – and apparent shock.

"I know this exact code. It's one of ours. Don't tell anyone."

_Not much of a clarification_. But she knew that the Duro was serious, very serious.

"Let's go. We'll use your datapad only. Disconnect it from our network. There may be a mole."

People at the MIDDEC/ENC were not just math and computer wizards with practically eidetic memory and super-human security clearances, they were also trained in some basic intelligence field work. The risk of infiltration was very much present, so the employees were told to keep an eye on each other – and what to expect from an enemy agent.

Ana was remarkably calm. "Okay. Let's go to our lab, it should be empty now." She entered a few simple commands and her datapad temporarily ceased to exist in the central network. Running the decryption was fast – and indeed, the seemingly random noise turned into patterns.

Dor copied the calculations to his personal disk and turned towards Ana. "I've been validating security levels for this exact crypto back at my last gig at ENC, along with all the other senate-army channels. It's… let me see…"

It was quite an unusual sight to see the deep-blue Duro pale. "I think this is one of the direct senate-clone channels… so it's from the Chancellor's office, because the committees only have channels to the army HQs. And I'm pretty sure that the official office-clone channel is a Riemann-Zeta thing, not fractal generating… so this has to be the Chancellor's direct one. Yeah. Triple C."

"We're dead," Ana nodded, still calm. "But we need to tell people. Do we tell boss?"

"I guess we have to risk it. But we'll tell other people, too. We'll tell our team, and I guess a message for the ENC wouldn't hurt. If someone's willing to talk to us in the RMI brass, that would be even better."

"This is weird, though," she mused as she copied the data to her own disk as well. "The same encrypt? Why would a mole do that? And how could a mole here do that? I mean, what's the point? Even if _they_ know what _we're_ saying, they're not stupid to forget that _we'll_ be able to hear _their_ innuendos as well."

"Yeah, you're right, this really is weird… Shall we let our exalted leadership worry about that?"

"Tell you what. You talk to the Powers That Be, I'm copying this to several more places and getting our team up to speed."

"Just tell them how to slice it. Not the other part."

* * *

The group of six people assembled at the inconspicuous round table probably represented _the_ powerhouse of the galaxy. With two exceptions: no one from the Chancellor's Office and no one from the Jedi Council. The room was an office tucked away in an old Republic Naval Academy compound that used to serve as a mock command center and now was utilized as a place for top-level military meetings when the armed forces didn't want anyone else to know they were talking. The Navy closed the campus down some years ago as it relocated to a more prominent district, but it had a habit of not letting go of its property, much to the dismay of many investors - and it also had the habit of not publicizing its reasons for doing so.

The Navy, the GAR and the by far least visible uniformed service, the RMI, started holding the... private meetings on military matters only days after Geonosis, as soon as personal issues in the highest echelons had been dealt with and the supreme commanders of the military branches had picked a stable core of their staff. Usually, two people from each service sat at the round table; all in all, about a dozen individuals knew about these top-level, low-key gatherings. The sessions were not regular, being simply called together whenever one service felt it had something to share with the others at this level, and the topics ranged from discussing joint campaigns to matters of budget.

Or, sometimes, there were cases such as this, when the RMI stumbled upon a fish too big for the official channels.

"We've ran the tests four times. All of them agreed: the codes are one hundred percent similar. So, no, this is not a random thing. The chances of that happening are among the lowest numbers we've ever worked with, and that says something." The MIDDEC representative forwarded the screen of his datapad to the central holo, so instead of the usual galactic map, now there was a number of, well, numbers and several charts floating above the table. That was pure show, he knew, because none of the others could interpret the figures correctly. But it was sort of impressive.

"So what are the options?" A grey-haired woman with Republican Navy insignia and a calm voice opened the debate. "I personally find it highly… confusing. I confess that I do not see a purpose in such a setup."

"We're not sure either," the head of RMI, a general, replied. "It may be that a CIS mole planted the code into our systems simply so that they could listen in to the Triple C channel. However, since we obviously know our codes, they would have to realize that we could listen right back, so we're pretty sure it's not that simple."

"Could it be that they wanted us to find out and feed us misinformation?" A GAR general drummed his fingers. "Plant the code, let us discover it and then send us on wild bantha chases all over the galaxy."

"That is definitely an option, too. We'll need some time to confirm that their transmission on that channel are real," the Intelligence man switched the holo to a different set of pictures, "but from what we've decrypted so far, it looks real enough. These messages were intercepted two weeks ago," he highlighted a few lines, "and they describe the Separatist deployment around Saleucami right at that time quite accurately. And more matches like this are coming in with every decrypted message. But, that's still no proof, so yes, the smokescreen option is still on the table."

"If there is a mole, they may start chasing us around when the mole finds out we decrypted it. There is no risk in that for them: old intercepted messages really aren't of much use for us now, and they only add credibility to whatever nonsense they send our way," the army man shook his head and the RMI head silently congratulated him on a very fine specimen of paranoia.

"Why copy a code for that? It would only alert us that something is wrong with such a planted channel of theirs," the Navy lady shook her head and turned back towards the Intelligence officer. "General, obviously you know by whose design are we using the encryption for Triple C?" she inquired further.

"Well, not exactly. The Chancellor's Office gave it to our ENC department to test and implement. That's standard procedure – the civilian authorities have their own departments to come up with cryptos, and we have got each other's clearance. That's one of the questions I don't feel qualified to answer on my own, though. Do we ask them or not, and if we ask them, how much do we let them know? I want general agreement on this before I do anything."

"Intel's asking for consensus? That's a first," quipped another GARSH representative. "I don't exactly feel like knocking on the civvies' doors and asking politely, but we don't really have a choice, do we?"

"Actually, we sort of do. I have several people in the civilian secret services. But none of them high enough to access information like who designed what code right away, so it would be very risky. A misstep could easily ruin the trust between the agencies."

"You have mentioned that you have mutual clearance. When the RMI was assessing this clearance, did you have access to any materials which might help us now?"

The Navy lady was almost too astute, the head of RMI noted. "Unfortunately, not this type of information. We had a look at their recruiting procedures, their internal safety regulations, we had our guys run their cryptos – things we needed to know about their operation, not the specifics. So did they."

"Sir, if I may speak…" The MIDDEC representative was very aware of the fact that he was vastly outranked by anyone present and rather a guest of honor at the meeting – after all, it was his department that ran across the problem – but as he _was_ there, he played his part. "We did temporarily have access to their encryptions. We, um, might have forgotten to delete that data. There could be clues there."

The head of RMI took great care to flaunt genuine surprise. "While I would normally probably have to reprimand your department, colonel, I think I may just pass that opportunity up. Do have a look into it, please."

It was all a show they both rehearsed before the meeting, making it just obvious enough for the others to notice and sending off a clear signal: _we can afford to play you like this. Don't ask. Don't try to interfere. This is our job._ There was some tension in the supreme command of the Republic's military and the last thing the RMI needed was to be used as a chip in the power game the GAR and the Navy were subtly but constantly playing.

The assembled leaders of the two branches, to their credit, got the message. "Your subordinates seem to enjoy an unusual amount of privacy," the Navy hawk-lady's tone was polite and cold. "I'm sure you will know how to investigate further. But, please, do kindly take the care to inform us of your progress. This is too serious a matter."

_Serious for what exactly,_ the RMI leader was mildly amused at the show this fine woman was putting on. Oh, she was playing along, that was all right.

The GARSH representatives, on the other hand, were not amused. Of course, they _were_ working with clones, so it was to be expected their behavior would be… less refined, to say the least. One of them impatiently waved his hand. "We have no time for games. This is very serious, indeed. The RMI will do their investigation, we have to decide what to do about the facts we have now. I suggest we take an hour to discuss the measures to take in our branches and come here again. Will the RMI have any new information by then?"

"Indeed we will." _Ah, you can play the game, too, though you do have a… distinct style._ "Going through the relevant archives should not take long," the man from MIDDEC added. _Besides, our people are doing it right now anyway._

"It is settled, then. We shall meet in an hour." The other Navy admiral stood up. "Thank you, lady and gentlemen. Let us get to the bottom of this."


	2. Chapter 2: Overjoyed

None of the MIDDEC staff knew why Dor Palana and Ana Shtilek didn't turn up that afternoon, but then again, there wasn't time to dwell on that. There were rumors that they were looking over some old files that could help with that particularly troublesome piece of CIS crypto over at MIDENC.

The rumors were, technically, right.

Dor had finished slicing the sixth or seventh intercepted package and was confirming the information with last week's reports from Mygeeto. The decryption was perfectly smooth and the data themselves checked out flawlessly as well. Were the circumstances different, he would be thrilled. This way, the cold knife in his gut was only twisting deeper and deeper. There was no mistake: this thing was the genuine article.

In the meantime, his colleague was browsing through the conveniently forgotten piece of archive that the civilian intelligence agencies would be very surprised to find. She was, however, surprised to _not_ find anything like the encryption she was looking for, not even after double- and triple-checking the list.

"Dor?" she called the Duro.

"Yeah?"

"Could you take a look at this? I can't find the damn thing, but I may just be dumb. Just see for yourself whether it's there."

"Okay, hang on a sec…" he punched a few commands in the console, "yeah. What is it?"

"Like I told you. I can't find that blasted piece of crypto anywhere."

"Let me see…"

After a few minutes of amplified frowning, the knife went yet a good bit deeper.

"Yeah. Not there." They exchanged a blank look. "This is weird." Ana yawned and rubbed her temples. _The whole bloody galaxy crashing on top of her wouldn't make her loose the cool._ "What did they tell you over here, when you were doing maintenance? Where did it come from?"

"They didn't exactly tell me, but I might still be able to access the ENC archives… ah well. They locked me out of that one pretty fast," he added with a lighter touch of annoyance than she'd have expected.

"Okay. So what do we do now?"

"Use the backup I made for myself," the Duro grinned and produced a data card from his pocket. "An old habit. Comes in handy at times like these, eh?"

This actually merited raised eyebrows from Ana. "How do you do that without the admins noticing?"

"I simply changed the file access log. Well, not simply. I can show you later. I found a workaround for editing the timestamps – and there's a bug, the log doesn't allow multiple entries with the exact same timestamp, so it just forgets everything except for the last one you add. And you do the exact same thing for the log change, so no one can see anything." The grin widened. He was rather fond of that little achievement, as the obnoxious sysadmins boasted their software hatchling was flawless.

"Heh. You're sneakier than you look."

He wasn't sure how much of a compliment that was.

"Anyway, here we go…" he plugged the card into his personal datapad. "Yeah. The Triple C… designated COE1138, submitted by the Chancellor's Office, and, because we're now officially paranoid, let's see the logs … there's the periodic checks for the last three years, see that smooth infraction of mine? And here's when it was submitted, and that's about it. Yeah. None of ours were playing with it. Unless someone knows my little trick, but I bet you a drink at 500 Republica no one does."

"How can you be so certain?"

"You made a face when I told you about it. But the question is, where the hell did the damn code come from?"

The hint of temper at his comment dissolved practically immediately back into that practical coolness. "Not the civvies. Unless, of course, they have a mole and he deleted it from their archives right after they gave it to us."

"Good point. Let's check _their_ logs." Dor entered several commands and the screen spewed another endless set of columns that were utter gibberish to pretty much all the galaxy's denizens while making perfect sense to a few choice individuals. "Mind you, this is just a copy from the time when we were doing that clearance thing, but that still should be good enough for us… oh blast, they use a different log system. We can't read this thing…"

"I can," Ana cut him off flatly and it was his turn to be surprised. "My twin sister works there."

"Your what?" _Not the best of retorts._

"And I am your father. Just kidding. When you were poring over their data here, I was actually working over at their place and got transferred over to the RMI shortly afterwards."

"And they let you go?"

"It didn't take a lot of persuading. They were glad they got rid of me, and, besides, we're working together with the civvies, are we not?"

"Like right now?"

"Well, we're helping them with themselves. Plus, I was supposed to report back to them. Before you ask, I never did – and they can't get back at me without making morons of themselves, so they just let it slide."

"And now you're telling me."

"Someone might shoot us the moment we step out of this room. It's sort of relaxing to tell someone."

"Yeah, I really needed to hear that. Now I'm just chilling out. Anyway, stare away, civ whiz."

"Lieutenant civ whiz." She scanned the lines for several patterns. "No tampering, as far as I can tell, though I admit I don't know their bugs as good as you do ours."

"I have a thing for insects. Yeah. So where are we at?"

"Well, probably no problem on our side, probably no problem on the civvie side, I guess that leaves just one middleman." She spun in her office chair. "There's a big bug for you."

"You think someone around old Palps planted the code when they transferred it over to us?" For some reason, he really _was_ oddly relaxed now, given that, indeed, someone might shoot him the moment he steps out of their room. So was, not quite obviously, Ana, and Dor couldn't really remember her engaging in such banter; the atmosphere was almost that of a leisurely stroll down a Coruscanti boulevard, the knife in the gut was gone. Or maybe just so deep he stopped caring.

"Possibly. I mean, who else is there?"

"Still doesn't solve the bigger mystery: why the hell do we have the same code like the seppies."

She shrugged. "Not my job. By the way, could you do that little Jedi mind trick on our dear access logs again with all of this?"

"Already working on it." It took a bit of creative copying and pasting to cover their prowling, but it wasn't like Dor had no practice. "Yeah. Smooth. So what do we do now?"

"Boss will be checking in pretty soon. Personally. I guess we just wait for his scrawny ass to show up."

"I do hope he lets us go after that. I mean, we can hardly do more than we've already done. Including the illegal stuff." The Duro leaned back into his chair and folded his arms behind his head. "I think it's about time for the talking guys to do their thing, too."

"If he does let us off the hook for the night, let's go get drunk."

"Will your twin sister be there, too?"

"Depends on how much you guzzle."

"I'm in."

She spun her chair around again, several times, and laughed. "Force, I feel good. How weird is that?"

"Not weirder than having you swear, spin around in an office chair and laugh in one day."

"It's the stress, I guess. I'm not normally like this. I don't usually feel this good, either. It's like being drugged, or something…"

They exchanged the second blank stare of the day, and the knife was _back_.

"The vents. Check the vents!"

Being in an underground facility had its distinct features. They dropped to the floor and soon found the small ventilation outlets scattered around the walls, close to the ground.

"Smell anything weird?" she shouted.

"No. The temperature and pressure is all right, too."

"Could still be something we can't detect…"

"Yeah. Well, whatever it is, it's not working very fast." Dor was standing up. "I guess we can probably go get checked at the med ward after we get out of here."

"Probably." She was already back in her chair. "Or, you know, we're just being our officially paranoid selves." She chuckled. "Seriously? 'The temperature and pressure is all right?'" Their eyes met. "_Sniffing at the vents?_"

They exploded into laughter, tears of mirth flowing freely from their eyes.

"Check the vents! The Atmo Bureau wants to choke us!" he cried as he shook from laughter. "Revenge of the sysadmins!" she shouted back, kicking against the wall and rolling her chair backwards through across the room.

Several moments later, the aforementioned boss entered the secluded office.

He found two bodies on the floor with widened pupils and speckles of foam at their mouths. He hit the alarm on his comm immediately.

Before an hour went by, the six people were back in their low-key council room.

"I have some alarming news," the head of RMI arrived last and it was obvious he was even more tense than before. "My people found that the code originated directly from the Chancellor's Office, not from the civilian service. And they have been attacked…"

The male Navy admiral waved his hand dismissively. "An attack on your people is unfortunate, but not for us to discuss right now. However, the information about the code's origin… that is a wholly different matter."

"We've done some thinking on that, actually," one of the GARSH commanders cut in. "We might have been looking in the entirely wrong direction. Couldn't this be an internal power game of sorts? There may be… _someone_ attempting to sow distrust of the Chancellor's Office among the military."

"You mean the Jedi," the Navy lady said plainly.

Heavy silence laid its hand on the group.


End file.
